Hacking at Bengaluru city's problems with Apps

The hackathon, where 651 teams participated, aimed at solving Bengaluru's transportation woes, crime and address public safety through the use of technologyET Bureau | October 05, 2015, 08:29 IST

By J Vignesh

Arun Thakur is a 56-year-old who wanted to give something back to society. So, when he heard about The Urban Hack on October 3 and 4, there was his chance. The senior vice president and head of big data at InfoVision, an IT services company in Bengaluru, teamed up with Harish Reddy from startup 7C Studio to design 'Vajra'.

The app hopes to increase profits of the city's Volvo service by 15% in three months. It provides for flexible fares and flexible routes.

The hackathon, where 651 teams participated, aimed at solving Bengaluru's transportation woes, crime and address public safety through the use of technology. After all, as Vidhya Shankar, head partner alliance, 10,000 startups, NASSCOM, put it: “Government institutions can only do so much.“

The Bengaluru City Police and Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) provided data for participants to design apps on. “Technology is a real enabler in solving society's challenges. Hackathons like this help in discovering solutions and empowering citizens,“ said Abhishek Goyal, DCP (City Armed Reserve). Goyal, an IIT-Delhi computer science graduate, mentored the participants by answering their queries before the start of the hackathon.

The winners, yet to be decided, will get to work with the city police and transport corporation to pilot the applications.

Techie brothers Jameel Ahmed Kaladji and Mohammed Mujeed Kaladji designed a GPS-based app called `Good Samaritan', shortened to gSam, which can aid in traffic management and reporting of crimes and accidents on the streets. “We have been in Bengaluru all our lives. We have seen accidents, people violating traffic rules and road rage incidents on a daily basis,“ they said.

HackerEarth, which conducted the Aadhar hackathon in June, provided the platform for this event too. “We wanted to work with the government and address issues using technology ,“ said Vivek Prakash, its CTO.

“This hackathon was the first smart city hackathon in the country. It made sense because Bengaluru is the Silicon Valley of India and it has the talent to set an example for other cities to follow,“ said Nilkanth Iyer, country leader, cloud ecosystem.